Greg on Flickr:

Happy 29th Birthday to Johnny Weir!

I’m just crazy about champion skater Johnny Weir and want to wish him a very happy 29th birthday.

The three-time US national champion has always marched to his own drummer and in a 2010 interview I did with him, he told me why: “I find that I’m very strong and that’s something that was instilled in me by my parents. They never told me not to do something or to do it this way, they always pushed my brother and I to do everything the way we thought was right. When you don’t have the constant badgering from family and friends, then you tend to grow and be unique and strong in who you are.”

He added: “I’ve fallen down more than I’d like to admit in life but I always get up, and I always dust myself off and I keep moving because my parents taught me that.”